The Disaster Days

by Rebecca Behrens

  “Whoa, sorry!” He hadn’t reacted so strongly any other time I’d looked at his injury. “Is the pain a lot worse today?” Between sobs, he nodded.

  Enough of the fabric had been freed from underneath the splint so I could pull it back without actually touching him. When I did, I gasped. The bruising was an even deeper shade of purple. It spread up his shin and down toward his foot. The skin on the rest of his lower leg—the parts that weren’t purplish—was pale, strangely tight, and shiny looking. Almost like the glistening plastic legs that Barbie dolls have. Something was very wrong.

  “Can you still move your toes?”

  He grimaced. “It’s hard to wiggle them. Everything feels like pins and needles.”

  “And it wasn’t like that yesterday?” He shook his head no. “I’ll look this up in the medical book.”

  I scrounged around on the tent floor, searching for the faded blue cover of the home medical guide. When I finally found it, I flipped to the page where I’d folded the edge to mark the entry for sprains and fractures. I skimmed the text, looking for anything about shiny skin or tingling. My finger stopped on a sidebar about “Acute Compartment Syndrome”:

  This painful syndrome happens when swelling and pressure, after an injury, build up in a “compartment”—such as an arm or a leg. This may happen very suddenly after an injury, and it presents a surgical emergency. If pressure is not decreased, it can cause nerves and muscles in the affected area to die. This can begin to happen within just four to eight hours.

  Watch for these warning signs of acute compartment syndrome:

  Severe pain, which may become worse with touch to or movement of the affected area

  Discomfort that is not ameliorated by pain relievers

  Loss of feeling in the area

  Skin that appears pale, shiny, and tight

  “Pins and needles” sensation, tingling, or numbness

  Seek immediate medical attention. Temporary first aid may include loosening any bandages or wraps covering the area, and raising the affected limb to heart level.

  I swallowed hard. Check, check, check, check, and check. We needed to get Oscar to a hospital or find a doctor. Fast.

  First, though, I could at least loosen the hair ties that fastened his splint. “This might ease the pain. Hold my hand,” I said, offering my left for him to squeeze. Oscar took it; his palms were ice-cold and clammy. I ran my thumb soothingly over the back of his hand, the way my mom always does when she holds my mine during something scary or sad or uncomfortable, like getting a filling at the dentist. I carefully slid the bottom elastic off his foot. Oscar gripped my hand so tightly it felt like he could snap my bones.

  “Is that any better?” He shook his head, reconsidered, and then nodded. I really hoped the homemade splint hadn’t somehow made the compartment syndrome worse, or had caused it.

  Somehow Zoe slept through all this. “Zoe?” I called. We needed to pack up our essentials, get Oscar into the wagon—with his leg somehow elevated, if we could figure that out—and leave. Once we were at my house, I’d figure out what to do next. Maybe, if we were lucky, my phone would pick up service over there.

  Zoe didn’t stir. “Zoe!” I called again, my tone sharper. This wasn’t the time for sleeping in, no matter how cozy her pile of blankets might feel.

  She mumbled something at me but still didn’t sit up. Grumbling, I crawled to her side of the tent. Her face was really flushed—weird, considering how cold it was inside and out. My exhales were cottony white puffs. Combined with my wheezing, it was like I was imitating a freight train struggling to push itself up a mountainside.

  “I don’t feel good,” Zoe said, finally opening her red-rimmed eyes and squinting at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I reached out my hand and pressed it to her forehead, like my mom always does whenever I say those four words. Zoe’s skin radiated heat. I didn’t know if she was actually burning up with a fever—which is what it felt like—or if I couldn’t judge temperature well because of the coldness of my hand-as-measuring-device. I pressed it to my own forehead, which felt almost as cool as my fingertips. No matter what, Zoe was too warm for someone who’d spent the night in fortyish-degree tent.

  Did she have the flu? My eyes fell on the water jug and narrowed to a squint. The water was tinged greenish yellow. She could have gotten sick from it, even though we’d boiled it… Although Oscar and I had been drinking it, too, and neither of us felt feverish. Or is she sick from her cut?

  “Hey, show me your arm.” She limply raised it for me. When I pushed up her sleeves, my stomach twisted. The skin underneath was bright red, with a few fiery streaks. I scraped at the edges of her bandage and lifted a corner. Then I gagged. The wound hadn’t scabbed over at all. It was an angry red, puffy and oozing something green. There was no question. It had gotten infected. Badly.

  My chest became tight like a vise. I coughed to release the pressure, then again. Carefully, I pressed the bandage back down.

  “Does it look gross?” Zoe asked.

  I nodded. “You need antibiotics.” There were some in my house. My dad had a bad cold last month, and he thought it might be a sinus infection. The doctor at the urgent-care clinic prescribed him a course of antibiotics but said to wait another day before starting them to see if he got better on his own first. And then he did, so he never used the medicine. Dad was going to return the pills to the pharmacy when we refilled my inhaler. But for now, the vial of antibiotics was still in the medicine cabinet. “Good news: there are some at my house.” I know you’re not supposed to share medications ever, but this was an emergency. What if Zoe didn’t take any and wound up getting gangrene or something? What if they had to amputate her arm?

  “Then let’s head over there.”

  I smiled at her. “My thoughts exactly.” She offered a half smile back. I guess we’d at least reached a truce. Or maybe she felt too awful to still be angry with me. “We have plenty of children’s Tylenol at my house too.”

  Zoe looked sheepish, as she reached into her coat pocket with her good hand. She pulled out a red-and-white vial. “I found this in the bathroom. I kept it…for an emergency. There’s only one pill left inside. It’s not the children’s kind, so Oscar couldn’t take it,” she added quickly.

  And she’d kept that from me? I felt a prickle of anger that she hadn’t handed it over right away. I opened my mouth, ready to snap at her to never do that again.

  Then I thought of the sing-along last night; I hadn’t told her or Oscar about the bear. The first morning, I had also gone into the bathroom to listen to the radio on my own. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky by withholding information; I was trying to be smart. To protect them. Even if I didn’t agree with what she’d done, maybe Zoe had felt the same. Maybe she had wanted a chance to be the hero.

  “Exactly how old are you?” I asked.

  “Ten,” Zoe said. “And three months.”

  I thought for a moment. “You should take the medicine.” I would need her help today—to get Oscar into the wagon and to carry things once we were on our way. She couldn’t help us if she had a fever and if her arm was pulsing with pain. Once we got to my house, we’d have access to other medicines. Then, until the antibiotics kicked in, she could go back to taking children’s Tylenol.

  Zoe was tall for her age, not much smaller than me, and I had already graduated to the regular kind. But to be sure, I compared the two pill bottles. My mom always double-checked the dosage instructions before giving me any medicine. The label said the children’s had 160 milligrams in each chewable, and you could take two every four hours. The adult pill was 325 milligrams, so that was about the same as one children’s dose anyway.

  I held out the pill while Zoe reached for the water jug, wrinkling her nose when she saw the color inside. She popped the tablet into her mouth and took a swig. I could tell she had to force down the swallow. />
  “Great. Now let’s hitch up the wagon and go.”

  * * *

  We lingered at the top of the driveway. Oscar lay in the red wagon, nestled atop a layer of blankets. We’d positioned couch pillows in a stack below his foot, to keep the injured leg elevated. I’ll never forget how hard he cried as we lifted him in and carefully, gently arranged his leg. He convulsed with sobs, howling every time his leg moved the slightest bit. The ride to my house would be bumpy under normal conditions—Forestview Drive was old and potholey. After the quake, who knew what shape it would be in. I shuddered. It was going to hurt Oscar so much to drag him in the wagon, but that was the only way to get him help.

  In his lap was Jupiter’s box, which Oscar clung to with both hands. Zoe tucked our In Case of Emergency notebook next to him. We were all wearing the raincoats over our parkas, making us look as puffed up as Violet Beauregarde after she ate Willy Wonka’s gum. The current precipitation was a light drizzle—just spitting, as my dad would say, but you never know when the sky will suddenly open up on Pelling Island.

  The earth too, apparently.

  I tore out a page from the notebook and scribbled a note to Andrea or anyone who might eventually come looking for us:

  We went to the Steele house next door. Will try to get help from there. O and Z are injured and need a doctor! We have Jupiter too.

  I added the date and stuck it to the front door with a bandage. I felt bad using one from our small supply, but I wanted to make sure the note didn’t blow away in the breeze and that was my only adhesive.

  Some stuff we had to leave in the tent: the heavy encyclopedia books, the broken radio, and the larger couch cushions. We packed up the scraps of leftover food, the remaining first aid supplies, the dimming flashlight, and the mostly full water bottle from Jupiter’s cage. The jug of water we’d finished off after Zoe took her pill. When I realized that none of us had needed a trip to the bathroom bushes since waking up, it seemed pretty likely that we were dehydrated.

  While Zoe had been pulling things together inside the tent and Oscar was resting—meaning, he was lying down with his eyes closed, occasionally letting out a sharp exhalation of pain somewhere between a shriek and a cry—I’d sneaked over to the firepit. The bean can I found hiding behind one of the logs. Nothing was left inside, not a single speck of dried refried bean paste, but in the soft mud around the firepit, I saw the evidence I’d been looking for: paw prints. A triangular-shape pad, ringed at the top by five ovals like toe prints. With sharp notches above them, from large claws. It perfectly matched both the bear print sketched in our emergency survival notebook, for identification purposes, and also the photo that I’d taken of the prints book page.

  Yup. Mr. Bear had been there.

  Before we headed down the driveway, I turned to finally face the front of the house. Half the windows were shattered. Broken eaves over the door dangled. I might be imagining it, but one spot of the roof looked like it was sinking. A few sand volcanoes dotted the front yard too, and one of the big trees tilted dangerously toward the house. If another aftershock happened—that tree could come crashing down. Maybe taking the house with it. It looked dilapidated, utterly unlike the cheery home I’d walked up to days before, after waving goodbye to Mr. Fisk and the bus. That afternoon felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Let’s get going,” I said. “Keep pace with us, Zoe.” She was on her shiny purple scooter, which we’d found, unscathed, among the rubble of the carport as we passed through. I thought it would be easier for her to scoot instead of walk alongside the wagon and me.

  The condition of the driveway made me think of Neha. We loved experimenting with face masks at sleepovers, some that we mixed up using a “beauty cookbook” that Neha’s mom had on the kitchen shelf: oatmeal, avocado, honey, yogurt, etc., but my favorites were always the single-use packets of mud mask from the drugstore that we bought with saved-up allowance. I liked the sensation of the creamy mud tightening on your face as it dries, and how if you make any facial expressions once the mask is set, a funny pattern of lines and cracks forms in the goo. Neha and I would have a challenge similar to a staring contest while wearing them—trying to make each other laugh, and then seeing whose mask held up the best with the least cracks.

  Anyway, the driveway reminded me of those hardened masks. It had been a neat, even, unbroken black asphalt surface when I came over. Now, it was riddled with fissures and uneven spots where the pavement dipped or rose in a strange new topography. I dragged the wagon as gently as possible, and avoided going over all the fallen branches and other debris, but it could only bump along, as Oscar whimpered.

  I turned back to say, “Tell me if you need to rest, Oscar.” I felt like I would be the one needing the rest. The overloaded wagon was heavy and so was my loaded backpack. We’d barely eaten breakfast, and my stomach felt hollow and angsty. No matter how much I tried to clear my lungs with coughs, my breath came out in half-hearted wheezes. Things were a bit spinny, like how you feel after going on a carousel or trying to hold your breath underwater. I don’t know if that was from lack of air or food or both.

  We just have to make it to my house. It’ll be okay once we’re there. We’ll have my inhaler. Antibiotics. Tylenol. Bandages and ointment and those little alcohol wipes. And fresh water and food.

  Fresh water sounded amazing. I turned to stare at Jupiter’s water bottle, tucked next to Oscar in the wagon. No, that wasn’t a line I was ready to cross, drinking from a guinea pig’s bottle.

  You can’t see the road from the Matlocks’ yard, because the foliage is so thick. The trees that dot the driveway become sparse at the end, so the sky suddenly opens up and then you can clearly see the road and the forest preserve sign. As I tugged the wagon to the end, Zoe stopped rolling next to me. The mailbox had fallen down, lying in our path and marking a line between the Matlocks’ and the road. Between us and the world. It was time to cross it. It was time to see what was on the other side.

  17

  Our street—Forestview Drive—was where I learned to pedal a two-wheeler, where I attempted a few almost completely unsuccessful lemonade stands. (It’s hard to sell lemonade, even for a quarter, when there are no passersby. One time I was saved when a group of people on a bike tour stopped and took pity on me.) I knew each of its gentle curves, alongside of which thin white fencing separated the shoulder from the grass and evergreens. I’m pretty sure that even blindfolded, I would be able to walk the length of Forestview without trouble.

  After the quake, I didn’t recognize it.

  The asphalt had broken up like pan of peppermint bark after it’s cooled—a once smooth, unbroken (minus a few potholes) surface splintered into uneven chunks and crumbles. In some places there was just a small fissure between the pieces; in others, a big crevasse had formed. Below the layer of blacktop, sandy soil like a graham-cracker crust was visible. The speed limit signpost across from the end of the Matlocks’ driveway had slumped so far toward a rising chunk of road that the sign almost kissed the pavement. The normally neat, clearly defined shoulder was a jumble of rocks, dirt, and grass. Fallen trees were splayed across the road, their big branches tickling into the cracks.

  It was eerily quiet all around us. Even the breeze was missing. In the stillness we stood, gaping at the path we had to take, the obstacles we were going to have to cross. The sky above was the color of Earl Grey tea. The clouds hung heavy with impending rain. For a moment, I thought about turning around, heading straight back to the tent. I tried to rationalize staying put: What if one of our parents makes it back to the Matlocks’ house and somehow misses us on the way? And our note has blown away, so they don’t know where we are…Well, then they would keep looking for us. That wasn’t going to happen, anyway. Forestview Drive is the only road into the preserve and past our houses. We would be on it till we got to my house. Then, once we were inside, one of us could keep watch on the road through the picture window
in the living room. We could also stick up a few emergency cones, which my dad has stacked in the garage, and put a sign in the street. Then nobody would miss us.

  We cannot stay here. No matter how scary it was to leave. I reminded myself of all we needed: More supplies. A place where my phone might work, while it still had a charge. A way to get help from a doctor.

  And then there was Mr. Bear, who might come back again in the night. Or in the daytime, if he (or she, I really didn’t know) was as desperate as we’d become for food. Maybe the bear was in a similar predicament. Its house in the forest could have been destroyed too. Sympathy didn’t make me less scared of it, though.

  I looked at the cracked road, then over at Zoe. “I don’t think you can scoot through this, Zoe. Maybe it’s best to leave that here.” I pointed to her scooter. She nodded and lowered it to the grass. “I’ll walk in front of the wagon to pull—you can watch the back, make sure nothing falls off.”

  We moved slowly. Every time we crossed onto a new chunk of asphalt, I tensed, hoping that this one would be as stable as the last, and that the wagon wouldn’t get stuck in a crack. Up close, some of the gaps were even larger than I’d expected. These slots in the earth were deep and wide enough that someone Oscar’s size could get stuck in them. Not to mention Jupiter. If we suddenly tilted and his box went flying… He’d be lost forever.

  I found a rhythm as we walked, a few quick steps followed by a tug to get the wagon onto the next piece of road, then a moment to pause while I calculated our next move and caught my breath. My chest ached so badly. I wanted to lie down for just a minute, try to stop wheezing.

  Keep going. You’re almost halfway there. Your inhaler is going to fix this. It’s waiting for you at home.

  I pictured my kitchen. The phone on the countertop, next to the coffee canisters. I imagined lifting the handset off the base and pressing the button, hearing a miraculous dial tone. They could’ve restored the landlines by now, right? Then I pictured opening the cupboards, pulling out toaster pastries and peanut butter and fresh, clean bottles of water. Soon we’d be sitting in the living room, with plenty to eat, watching out the window for the arrival of the help we’d been able to call.